Re: [PATCH 0/8] Introduce fwctl subystem

Jakub Kicinski
2024-06-06T14:58:21Z

On Thu, 6 Jun 2024 11:41:02 -0300 Jason Gunthorpe wrote:
> In my view it is wrong to think the kernel is the only place we can
> make generic things or that allowing userspace to see the raw device
> interface immediately means fragmentation and chaos. The industry is
> more robust than that. Giving people working in userspace room to
> invent their own solutions is actually helpful to driving some
> commonality. There are already soft targets in the K8S that people
> need to fit into, if the first few steps are with abc/def tools and
> that brings us to an eventual true commonality, then great.

Yes, this is the core of our disagreement. And one which is quite hard
to resolve with technical arguments.

I believe kernel may not be a great place to keep all the controls,
but it is in my opinion the most healthy open source project among
the available options. You mention K8S, but I'd give SoNiC (the NOS)
as a more relevant example. A hyperscaler or another trillion dollar
company can certainly have a swing at creating other open layers of
commonality. Together with its other trillion dollar friends.

Removing the minor inconvenience of having to ship an out of tree
module for out of tree tools is not worth the loss.